


five times felicity smoak was in danger

by natcsharomanova



Series: five times felicity... [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, but still oliver/felicity nonetheless, havenrock, more felicity central than oliver/felicity central, set during season 5b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9928385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcsharomanova/pseuds/natcsharomanova
Summary: and five times she saves herself.





	

↣ 1 ↣

 

When the canary cry sounded throughout the lair, Felicity felt it in her spine before she felt it anywhere else. Glass windows and panes were shattering, and as each fragment fell to the ground, she felt a new sensation behind her scar.

First it was light; a soft tingling, barely noticeable unless she blocked out the rest of her surroundings. But then it grew, each phase a new form of unbearable pain -- burning, stabbing, everything signalling that something was wrong.

All her screens and servers were sparking in her peripheral vision. Really it was no surprise that the shrill cry of the meta could affect her implant also.

Rory wasn’t moving. Sure, her glasses had cracked and the pain from both the malfunction in her chip and the impact of flying and falling through the air was wavering her vision slightly -- but she could tell he wasn’t moving, clearly knocked out from the force. A black boot entered her line of sight, taking precedence over the limp form of her friend and team member in the corner. Her legs weren’t listening to her and there was a shard of glass deep inside her arm; but Felicity had known from the start that the woman who came to Oliver was not the same friend who left them; she had known from the start and she wasn’t going to lose the upper-hand now.

Her tablet had fallen from the table she crashed into, (conveniently) now lying by her side. Black Siren - the _wrong_ canary - was edging closer, and without a second thought Felicity grabbed it, pressing her emergency call button (thanks Team Flash) before lobbing it at the perpetrator with a flick of her wrist.

Of course it missed (by quite a lot actually -- Felicity was going to have to delete the footage of that from the lair’s security cameras before any of the skilled marksmen on her team witnessed that epic fail) and another scream bounced through her ears, each an echo of excruciating pain, rolling her body further backwards until she hit another obstacle: this time a wall of malfunctioning servers.

“You could at least play fair, you know. Give me a chance to get up.” She spat out the words, hoping her brave facade was at least convincible to a degree where the other woman believed she could get up -- which, now she thought about it, was going to take a while to fix, and since Paul didn’t react too well to the whole Curtis-fights-crime-every-night thing, which he easily could have figured out she was highly implicated in, would he even be willing to come back to patch her chip up?

Black Siren laughed, her sarcastic tone serving as an impossible match to the kindness of Laurel. _Right, more pressing issues at hand right now_. At least the canary cry wasn’t reverberating itself again; a faint ringing was still piercing her mind, and Felicity was beginning to worry it wouldn’t stop.

The fake Laurel began to talk again; another monologue about how hard it was to dress up as her doppelganger and pretend to have feelings or whatever. Felicity wasn’t really listening -- she was formulating, and everyone knows there’s no way to stop her once she has a plan in mind.

Even very stupid plans that could very much end with the meta using her powers to break her spine in a very unfixable, death-inducing way.

Whilst the other spoke at her, Felicity snaked her hand around the side of the server she was mostly propped up against, fingering blindly until she felt for the cable she wanted. The box itself was still sparking, dangerously close to her (the danger and fear lessened merely by the blurriness she saw it through), but the wire itself was still secure, one end of the cord wrapped in her hands, and the other embedded in the overall machinery. She waited until non-Laurel was close enough - but not too close - before she tugged with all her might (thank God she never skipped arm day).

The server came crashing down, Felicity propelling herself backwards -- which, note to self, was incredibly hard when she was working with upper-body strength alone. But, the plan mostly worked; the woman wasn’t unconscious or anything, but definitely hindered by the fact that a fairly large server box had fallen on her.

Felicity smiled as the doors to the lair busted open, her signal clearly having been received. Perhaps she’d keep the footage on the security feeds after all.

 

↣ 2 ↣

 

The last time she had felt this numb, she was lying in a hospital bed having been delivered life changing news, and no-one was beside her. 

This time, her legs were working and she wasn’t alone; the numbness wasn’t caused by painkillers and heartache, but rather by the freezing temperatures that continued to persist.

But hey -- at least she wasn’t alone.

Felicity had learnt a lot about Dinah Drake during their time locked up together. It also helped that about 20 minutes into realising that they couldn’t break the code on the lock and that the temperature wasn’t going to get warmer, they’d started huddling for warmth - the uncomfortable position soon became a lot easier once her lips turned less blue, and the woman  _ did _ have exceptional abs.

They’d started with childhoods, thinking it’d be easier. Felicity revelled in the reminiscence of days when the worst thing she’d ever done was count cards in a casino in Vegas when she was supposed to be doing homework, and Dinah laughed as she detailed each of her high school crushes to the blonde.

When the hypothermia kicked in, Felicity decided that they were going to be friends for the rest of their lives.

“How long has it been now?” she whispered, unable to sound her voice even a fraction higher, lips interrupting each syllable with a shiver. Her eyes were feeling heavy, and she knew Dinah had to be close to unconsciousness also. Her new companion extracted one arm from their survival embrace, and the reflection of Dinah’s watch almost induced Felicity to fist pumping, had she the strength.

Her brain begged her to ramble about her plan, to verbalise her joy at not being definitively dead, at her remembrance of a past situation when a watch manufactured by a friend to have wifi saved her life. She also slightly wanted to yell at herself for not realising that Dinah literally had a piece of tech on her that she could have used from the very start, but hey, she was making amendments now.

There were a few people she could have sent the emergency signal to; Oliver was an obvious choice, but she had no way of knowing how far away from the Mayor’s office they were being held. The same issue applied for the SCPD, as much as she trusted their efficiency (especially in saving one of their own new recruits). But Felicity knew time was very much of the essence, and this new found adrenaline would definitely be short-lived in face of the coldness begging her to just drift away.

The code was sent with near-unresponsive fingers, and as Felicity heard Dinah asking her what she had done, begging her to keep her eyes open, she saw a red flash phase through the locked door before she finally answered the frost’s invite to sleep.

 

↣ 3 ↣

 

“You lied to me. You always say that’s how I hurt you most, and you never forgave me for it. But for these last few weeks - these last few  _ months _ \- you’ve been lying to me. To all of us.”

Thousands of responses flooded through Felicity’s mind -- she wanted to call him out on how unfair he was being, judging her  _ appropriate  _ withholding of information with his intentional omission about something more personal; yell at him just to avoid answering his accusations; remind him that she never lied to Rory, but when she told him the truth he judged her, and she couldn’t hear that tone in his voice which had only ever been kind; that she did forgive him, but just never said it.

One thing she didn’t consider doing was crying. Yes, she was emotional, but if she started to breakdown now she wouldn’t stop, and she couldn’t let everything (not just about Helix, but Havenrock and all the turmoils she’d been putting in her own Pandora’s box) out now. Not with the rest of the team watching with wide eyes, and not with Oliver being able to see it all.

He wasn’t wrong, not really. She did lie to him. But she also saved the team in the process. Saved  _ him _ . Again and again and again. That was her job and she did it freaking well.

But she couldn’t just say that. She couldn’t start another argument, hear another comment from Rene about ‘mum and dad fighting’, see Curtis’ disapproving but silent face.

Felicity had been in danger many times. From the Clock King to Slade, and from bombs to bullets, she had always survived it all. But each time she opened Pandora’s Box with Helix’s flashdrive, she swallowed a demon she allowed to escape. They were fighting a civil war against her. Only now, in the face of Oliver’s confrontation and her lack of response, did she realise she was losing.

Oliver’s face began to soften as he noticed how his words had paralysed her. Felicity wasn’t going to give him a chance to take them back, or to apologise for her inabilities and struggles. Right now she was in danger of revealing herself, all her secrets -- the life she had worked so hard to build in the wake of mass devastation and trauma and late night panic attacks and interrupted sleep.

She was in danger of finally letting someone in to see the mess she had become.

Felicity knew it wasn’t healthy and knew that the man opposite her, reaching out his hand to touch her shoulder in such a starved way, wanted nothing more than to help.

But when she was in danger all she could see was red, and a clear route to escape from.

That route was walking away, flashdrive in hand, past the pairs of confused and desperate eyes, into the rain and the shelter from judgement.

So she did just that.

 

↣ 4 ↣

 

She was arrested in a coffee shop in front of Thea Queen and the barrister who once lent her a spare T-Shirt in the midst of a coffee crisis. Felicity was as much embarrassed as she was confused.

(She was also slightly relieved that Oliver wasn’t there, because the Mayor of Star City punching a federal officer in the face would  _ not _ have looked good on his political ledger).

Her trial hearing was the next day. On charges of illegally hacking into the NSA on multiple occasions (guilty), privately owned satellites (guilty) and aiding and abetting crimes committed by one of the masks of the city (also, guilty), she was denied bail.

Oliver visited her in prison the following day - which, again, would  _ not _ be good for his political ledger - and promised to find whoever gave the federal government information on her (and decisively did not laugh when she giggled  _ “snitches get stitches _ ”, still in shock that she was wearing an orange jumpsuit) and more importantly, get her out.

And it wasn’t that Felicity didn’t have faith in the latter oath -- the same man did, after all, break a man out of military prison and then clear him of all charges. But that was mostly with her help, and her method of doing so was exactly what led to her sitting in a dirty cell faced with peeing in front of criminals and showering with even more.

So she decided to make her own plan.

That day at lunch, she wrote something down on a napkin and slid it towards one of the girls she shared a cell with who was  _ way _ too preppy to have been in prison for five years (making sure to hide her face as she did so). The girl’s eyes lit up, and although Felicity had only known her for less than three nights, she knew the information would quickly be passed on throughout the rest of the prison in no time.

She’d never started a rumour about herself before. She was playing a dangerous game of Chinese whispers, and the thrill it brought her was thankfully more exciting than worrisome.

That night, a (shifty) guard (who definitely takes bribes) unlocked her cell, ordering the other inmates to leave. Three others took their place; girls that Felicity knew the Hood, Arrow or Green Arrow had put away. Thanks to her own napkin message, the girls too knew that she had been accused of working with all three vigilantes.

The inmates didn’t hurt her too bad (which she was thankful for). Her glasses were broken, by this point simply an occupational hazard, and she had a black eye, split lip and bruised ribs to show for it -- but, as she later would argue to Oliver, her plan had worked. The next morning, the court reviewed the evidence of the attack and Felicity was granted bail.

Star Labs also wrote an affidavit which said she always had permission to use their private satellite, which she would definitely abuse in the future, so really it was a win-win all around.

 

↣ 5 ↣

 

When she finally told Oliver about everything that had been haunting her for months, for over a year, it was Summer. They were where they stood side by side a year ago -- next to a fallen friend, on green grass that continued growing despite the death and destruction that it was built atop of.

Never before had she visited a graveyard and seen her own reflection in the greenery beneath her feet.

They moved to sit on a park bench when she started crying; shaking sobs that paralysed her tongue as she finally admitted that she wasn’t okay. As if it was some groundbreaking revelation -- as if Oliver hadn’t already known that for just as long as she had. It still felt good to say it, though.

He confessed to things also, told her things he didn’t even mention during their road trip or in the lead up to their engagement. At first it was like experiencing that same heartbreak all over again; the knowledge that he had been keeping so many things from her despite intending to marry her a shocking slap from reality.

But then she decided to just listen. She took an objective viewpoint and wholeheartedly dedicated each of her five senses to understanding what he was saying; her eyes conveyed forgiveness, her hands reached out for his, she tasted the salt of her tears to keep her grounded, and she smelt the blades of grass that managed to water her eyes just moments before. All whilst her ears just listened, grateful that they were hearing new words instead of being resentful that they hadn’t heard them before.

When they had both finished, they were silent for a while. They listened to birds singing in the trees above them and watched a pair of ants crawl in between their bodies, carrying the weight of a crumb on both of their shoulders.

They looked at each other and decided, silently but unanimously, that they’d be more like that pair of ants from that moment onwards. They’d carry each other’s burdens together, as partners. They wouldn’t watch as one struggled, or try to take both loads at once. Both situations would just lead to one collapsing and the other having to take on their weight as well as their burdens.

Felicity inhaled slightly as she realised what was happening; as she fully accepted the danger that lied before her. The danger of letting someone in again, of engaging in healthy coping techniques, of allowing herself to be hurt once more.

The danger of letting herself be happy. Letting herself love Oliver Queen. But she knew how to remove the fear and the danger this time.

She leant in, and when she exhaled the same breath, it was against his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading !! hopefully you enjoyed this -- mostly I wrote it for myself, since this season of arrow (which I'm honestly really enjoying) made me crave some felicity-central fics which dealt with all those emotions she bottling up under the surface right now. but I really hope that others enjoyed it too.
> 
> I have another (completed) olicity series called 23H if you want to check that out -- it's very different; perhaps the lighter and funnier fic that we need during this darker season.
> 
> I've also decided to make this 'five times felicity' thing into a series -- hopefully there will be more up soon :)
> 
> find me on tumblr @nyssaalgayul if you want !!


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